Ibn al-Anbārī said, “Had the people of Baghdad and Kufa possessed no grammarians save al-Kisāʾī and al-Farrāʾ, they would have sufficed.”

Some declared, “Al-Farrāʾ is the Commander of the Faithful in grammar.” (1)

Hannād related: “Al-Farrāʾ used to accompany us on our visits to the shaykhs, yet he never wrote anything down; we assumed he was committing everything to memory.” (2)

Muḥammad ibn al-Jahm said, “I never saw a single book with al-Farrāʾ except a copy of Yāfiʿ wa Yafʿah.” (3)

Thumāmah ibn Ashras recounted: “I met al-Farrāʾ and examined him on philology, and found him an ocean; on grammar, and saw him peerless; on jurisprudence, and discovered him versed in the scholars’ disagreements; in medicine, an expert; and in Arab history, poetry, and astronomy, likewise. I informed the Commander of the Faithful about him, whereupon he summoned al-Farrāʾ.” (4)

Among al-Farrāʾ’s writings is a book entitled al-Bahiyyah, about the same length as Thaʿlab’s al-Faṣīḥ; it contains most of what is in al-Faṣīḥ, though Thaʿlab arranged his material differently.

The total extent of al-Farrāʾ’s compositions amounts to three thousand folios.

Salamah stated, “Al-Farrāʾ dictated all his books from memory.” (5)

It was also said that he was called al-Farrāʾ because he used to dissect speech. (6)